The present invention relates to a new and distinct cultivar of Bracteantha plant, botanically known as Bracteantha bracteata and referred to by the cultivar name `Florabella White`.
The new Bracteantha is a product of a planned breeding program conducted by the Inventor in Gapsted, Victoria, Australia. The objective of the program is to create and develop Bracteantha cultivars with a compact growth habit, small leaves, numerous inflorescences, bright involucral bract colors, and short peduncles.
The new Bracteantha originated from a cross by the Inventor of an unidentified yellow involucral bract-colored proprietary selection of Bracteantha bracteata as the female, or seed, parent with an unidentified white involucral bract-colored proprietary selection of Bracteantha bracteata as the male, or pollen, parent. The new Bracteantha was discovered and selected by the Inventor as a plant within the progeny of the stated cross in a controlled environment in Gapsted, Victoria, Australia in 1997. The selection of the new Bracteantha was based on its growth habit, leaf size and peduncle length as plants of the new Bracteantha are more compact, have smaller leaves and shorter peduncles than plants of the parent selections.
Asexual reproduction of the new Bracteantha by terminal cuttings taken in a controlled environment in Gapsted, Victoria, Australia, has shown that the unique features of this new Bracteantha are stable and reproduced true to type in successive generations.
The new Bracteantha has not been observed under all possible environmental conditions. The phenotype may vary somewhat with variations in environment such as temperature, daylength, light intensity, photoperiod, and water and nutritional status without, however, any variance in genotype.
The following characteristics have been repeatedly observed and are determined to be basic characteristics of `Florabella White` and distinguish the new Bracteantha as a new and distinct cultivar:
1. Upright, outwardly spreading and rounded plant form.
2. Compact plant habit.
3. Small lanceolate leaves.
4. White-colored involucral bracts and yellow-colored disc florets.
5. Short peduncles that hold inflorescences above the foliage.
Plants of the new Bracteantha differ from its sibling cultivars, `Florabella Gold`, U.S. Plant patent application Ser. No. 09/740,532, and `Florabella Pink`, U.S. Plant patent application Ser. No. 09/740,534 primarily in involucral bract coloration.
The new Bracteantha can be compared to the Bracteantha bracteata cultivar `Nullabor Spectrum`, disclosed in U.S. Plant patent application Ser. No. 08/938,583 (abandoned). In side-by-side comparisons conducted by the Inventor in Gapsted, Victoria, Australia, plants of the new Bracteantha differ in involucral bract color and are more compact, have shorter and narrower leaves, and have slightly smaller inflorescences than plants of `Nullabor Spectrum`.